Accelerate preparation for Games while holding down hosting costs

(c) 2016, The Japan News/Yomiuri

The following editorial appears in Wednesday's Yomiuri Shimbun:

To make the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics a success, important matters are to be decided at meetings of representatives of the four main parties involved in the Games. It is significant that this rule has been established.

A meeting of top-level officials was held, attended by representatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Japanese government, the Tokyo metropolitan government and the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They discussed issues related to the review of the venue plans for the Games.

At the meeting, participants agreed to hold the rowing and canoe sprint events at the Sea Forest Waterway, which is to be newly built. The proposal to change the venue to the Miyagi Naganuma Boat Race Course in Miyagi Prefecture was not adopted, an idea that Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike had favored in order to make the 2020 Games a symbol of post-quake reconstruction.

Discontinuing the construction of the Sea Forest Waterway would make it necessary to pay sizable damages to construction companies, leaving little advantage in terms of cost to holding the events in the Naganuma boat park. This could be the primary reason for abandoning the proposal.

The Naganuma park will be used for such things as a training camp site for teams of participating countries prior to the events. This can be considered a gesture to the feelings of the local community, in which momentum for hosting the events had been growing.

For swimming, a new facility will be built but with the number of seats to be reduced from the original plan. Just as in the case of the Sea Forest Waterway, construction costs must be trimmed as much as possible.

Boost ties among 4 parties

To prevent the facility from becoming a "negative legacy" of the Tokyo Games, the sporting organizations opposed to changing the venue should also responsibly discuss ways to utilize the facility after the Games.

A decision on where the volleyball events should be held was postponed because Koike called for a grace period to decide on whether to hold the events at the Ariake Arena - to be newly built - or to shift the venue to the existing Yokohama Arena in Yokohama. "We'd like to reach a conclusion [as the Tokyo metropolitan government] by Christmas Day at the latest," Koike said.

As the governor said, this may be the "last chance" to review venue plans. How much can the development costs for the Ariake Arena be cut from the initially estimated ¥40.4 billion under the current plan? Won't problems in such areas as security and transportation occur if the venue is changed to Yokohama?

It is important to make a final decision only after seriously looking at these points.

The metropolitan government as the host city and the organizing committee should maintain close ties to make the Games a success.

Since Koike became governor, relations between the Tokyo metropolitan government and Yoshiro Mori, president of the organizing committee, have been strained. Both have to strengthen their cooperation so as to accelerate the preparation for the events, together with the IOC, from now on.

The organizing committee indicated a plan to cap the total cost of holding the Games at ¥2 trillion. But IOC Vice President John Coates called for further efforts to cut costs, saying that the IOC has not necessarily consented to the planned amount.

While intensively injecting funds into such important things as antiterrorism measures, wasteful spending should be cut. We hope the four parties will cooperate with each other to realize an Olympic Games that will become a model for the future.